


people who are pathologically incapable of making up their minds

by unDeleterious



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Alienation, Découpé, Gender Issues, Intersex, Nonbinary, Other, Trans, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 18:31:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11674737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unDeleterious/pseuds/unDeleterious
Summary: Betan hermaphrodites, Cetagandan Ba, and the rest of us.





	people who are pathologically incapable of making up their minds

**Author's Note:**

> From Wikipedia: The cut-up technique (or découpé in French) is an aleatory literary technique in which a text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text.
> 
> -
> 
> Text is taken from The Warrior's Apprentice, Brothers in Arms, Borders of Infinity, The Vor Game, Mirror Dance, Cetaganda, A Civil Campaign, and Diplomatic Immunity to form a commentary on the treatment of gender variance in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga and on the social perception of trans, intersex, and nonbinary people in the real world. No text has been copied twice; if text is repeated, it was repeated within the series. The title is from The Warrior's Apprentice; only the summary is original text.

-

“Wonder if there's any more like him—her—"  
"It,"  
him/her/it  
-He--she-.  
She/he, whatever,  
ma'am--sir . . ." her tone faltered a moment,  
Truly 'it.'

“It is not a woman. It is  
a woman, too," pointed out in a murmur.  
"Among other things.”

man/woman  
both sexes  
double sexed  
The neuter ones,  
genderless  
de-sexed  
altogether sexless.

what could have been either a handsome young man or a strong-faced woman.  
a delicate man or an unusually determined woman.

soft brown hair  
soft, short brown hair  
a short, ambiguous cut  
that either a man or a woman might sport.  
This ambiguity was deliberately cultivated  
-  
a project of dubious merit.  
one of the lunatic fringe's loonier experiments  
every bit as bizarre as anything rumored to be done for money by ethics-free surgeons  
an experiment in social engineering that had succeeded only in creating another minority.  
A fringe effort of egalitarianism run amok,  
a social experiment that had not caught on.  
had not caught on  
a social experiment  
and the original idealists  
hapless  
remained a minority

Except for a few stray wanderers  
Most of the men/women stuck to their own  
tolerant  
hyper-tolerant  
comfortable little subculture

the wider world probably  
hissed  
recoiling,  
snatching back his hand.  
you didn't.  
"Don't do that in public," said through his teeth.  
They could, and would, do anything  
"Sorry. Couldn't resist”  
a low taste for unsettling people.

“I think it has a crush on you.”  
notably universal in its sexual tastes, and  
beautiful, in its own ironic way  
an essential loneliness in the eyes, never permitted on the lips.  
  
Perhaps he ought to make his rejection more emphatic  
He was just managing a stiff smile,  
it stepped up and embraced him.  
suddenly and horribly  
His heart lurched, and he barely choked off a cry and a violent, defensive lashing-out.  
He endured the embrace   
_It's not going to kiss me, is it?!_

It was almost, but not quite, a joke.

-


End file.
